On behalf of the World Bank, I extend our very warm congratulations to Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on his election as Director-General of the World Health Organization. He brings a wealth of expertise and experience that will help steer WHO to have even greater impact. We look forward to strengthening our collaboration with WHO under the leadership of Dr.Tedros in our common pursuit of supporting countries to accelerate progress towards universal health coverage and to improve their preparedness to manage epidemic threats.

For some people in low- and middle-income countries, opening a bank account, taking out a loan, obtaining a driver’s license, or sending their children to school is out of reach because they don’t have official documents that prove their legal identity. Why do some people lack birth certificates, marriage certificates, family members’ death certificates, and other documentation?

In my blog in February I described the rationale behind the creation of the International Working Group on Financing Preparedness (“IWG”), which is focused on how to ensure sustainable funding for the first line of defence against pandemics – prevention, identification and containment of infectious disease outbreaks at a national level. The IWG had its second face-to –face meeting earlier this month in London at Wellcome Trust. The goal of this meeting was to review the analytical work that had taken place over the last couple of months and debate a draft set of recommendations. Since that meeting we have been refining these recommendations with a view to presenting them in draft form to the UN Secretary General’s Global Health Crisis taskforce on May 1 and launching the full report at the World Health Assembly on May 25.

Thirty years ago, polio affected nearly 350,000 people per year across 125 countries. Today, the poliovirus is circulating in only two countries, Afghanistan and Pakistan, where five new cases have been reported so far in 2017. But progress to eliminate polio in the region has been difficult, particularly in North-West Pakistan, an area affected by deadly flooding, ongoing conflict, and attacks against vaccine health workers.

“If breastfeeding did not already exist, someone who invented it today would deserve a dual Nobel Prize in medicine and economics.” - World Bank Vice President of Human Development, Keith Hansen

This is a sentiment long-shared by many of us in the nutrition community and as the global movement in nutrition grows, so does our body of evidence supporting how powerful nutrition interventions are for individuals and for societies.

This year’s World Health Day carries a particular significance for me and for many others. The theme, “Depression: Let’s Talk,” shines a light upon a problem that oftentimes remains hidden in a dark corner of our minds, trapping us in a painful agony of sadness, loss of interest, and fear.

Tobacco use poses an unparalleled health and economic burden worldwide. A new study found that the diseases caused by smoking account for US$ 422 billion in health care expenditures annually, representing almost 6% of global spending on health. Smoking causes close to 6 million deaths per year - more than the deaths from HIV/AIDs, TB and Malaria combined. And the total economic cost of smoking after including productivity losses from death and disability amounts to more than US$ 1.4 trillion per year- equivalent in magnitude to 1.8% of the world’s annual GDP.